Tagged: Divine Comedy

Books and Reading

2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along Wrap Up

Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s Chapter-a-Day Read-along, whether you read all five books or limited yourself to just a few of them. In this post I’ll share a few of my reflections on the year, and I would love to know your thoughts about the experience. I invite you to leave a comment on this post to share what reading a chapter a day was like for you. The Divine Comedy – From my wrap-up post: There is so much depth to Dante’s poetry...

Books and Reading

Divine Comedy Chapter-a-Day Read-along Wrap-Up

Today we have reached the final chapter of The Divine Comedy, the first book of the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along. For the past 100 days we have accompanied Dante through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, and it has been quite the journey. I have to admit that this was one of the most challenging chapter-a-day read-alongs for me. There is so much depth to Dante’s poetry and there were so many footnotes that I feel I just scratched the surface of the poem. A daily read-along is probably not the...

Books and Reading

Divine Comedy Read-along Update: Week 5

We’re on day thirty-four of the 2021 Chapter-a-day Read-along, which means we’ve finally reached the end of Inferno and made our way out of Hell. Tomorrow we begin part two of The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio. This post gives you an opportunity to share your thoughts, quotes, and questions about Inferno. Some Quotes from the Past Week “My Guide and I crossed over and began to mount that little known and lightless road to ascend into the shining world again…And we walked out once more beneath the Stars.” –...

Books and Reading

Divine Comedy Read-along Update: Week 3

I’m a few days late with this post, but it’s week three of the 2021 Chapter-a-day Read-along, and we’re twenty-four cantos, or chapters, into Inferno, the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. We’ve only got ten more days in Hell, after which we will accompany Dante into Purgatory. This post gives you an opportunity to share your thoughts, quotes, and questions about the book up to canto twenty-four. Some Quotes from the Past Week “The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and...

Books and Reading

Divine Comedy Read-along Update: Week 2

It’s week two of the 2021 Chapter-a-day Read-along, and we’re over a third of the way through Inferno, the first part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. This post gives you an opportunity to share your thoughts, quotes, and questions about the book up to canto thirteen. Some Quotes from the Past Week “Men of sound intellect and probity, weigh with good understanding what lies hidden behind the veil of my strange allegory!” Inferno, Canto IX (Ciardi) “…the aim of malice is to injure others whether by fraud or...

Books and Reading

Divine Comedy Read-along Update: Week 1

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be weekly updates for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along. The plan is to make a very brief post each Wednesday to give readers a place to post their thoughts, questions, or reactions to the chapters read in the past week. If you’ve read ahead or if you know the story, please refrain from any spoilers. Each week I hope to post some quotes that stood out to me along with a footnote or two that might be helpful. I may...

Books and Reading

Preparing for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along: The Divine Comedy

The 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along begins in a few days and it’s time to get ready for our first book! If you’ve been part of our read-alongs the last few years, you know that we’ve already read some of the greatest novels of all time — works like War and Peace, Don Quixote, and The Count of Monte Cristo. But our first book of 2021 has been called “The Greatest Single Work of Western Literature.” I speak, of course, of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Dante’s masterpiece has had...

Books and Reading

Announcing the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-Along

This is the official sign-up post for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along. This marks the fourth year of the read-along, and we are once again back to reading several books instead of just one. As you might remember, there aren’t too many books that have exactly 365 chapters, and we’ve already read the most well known: Les Misérables and War and Peace. So, like we did in 2019, for 2021 we will be reading several different books whose chapters add up to 365. By joining along in reading one...